As we've noted, some of the most virulent anti-John McCain rhetoric on the ConWeb is popping up at Newsmax. Now the boss is trying to put a different spin on things.
But how did John McCain win, especially with so many conservatives against him?
Dick Morris suggested on Bill O’Reilly’s show Wednesday night that the GOP is just more liberal than we thought.
Dick is usually on target, but on this point, I respectfully disagree. The GOP is still very much the party of conservative Ronald Reagan.
[...]
McCain is not a liberal. He is a conservative. As such, he was the least offensive of the GOP candidates who ran in the Florida primary.
I think Florida voters saw it that way when they went to the polls and gave McCain a plurality (not a majority) in a very crowded field.
McCain is a maverick. McCain’s lifetime American Conservative Union voting record is 83 percent. Not bad! He is also pro-life, pro-gun, for limited government, and a strong national defense. He passes a certain acceptability level using the typical litmus tests for most Republicans.
At the same time, his own Newsmax writers weren't having any talk of moderation about McCain. Diane Alden compared supporters of McCain to the lotus-eaters in Homer's Odyssey: "The inhabitants of the United States have partaken of the fruit that has made them blind, deaf, dumb, forgetful, and self-satisfied. Why else would people vote for Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bill Bradley, John McCain and the others who promise more laws and expanding government?" Alden adds: "The Lotus-Eaters among American voters who prefer McCain are doing us a disservice and may have to be dragged kicking and screaming back to reality lest this nation sink deeper into a stupor and dissolution."
John LeBoutillier, who hates McCain almost as much as he hates the Clintons, counters his boss as well: "Conservatives hate McCain and that antipathy will only increase the more they are exposed to him."
Will the likes of LeBoutillier, Alden and Ronald Kessler fall back into GOP lockstep if McCain eventually becomes the nominee? Probably -- grudgingly so, because ultimately, they all hate Democrats too much to split the Republicans.
UPDATE: More McCain animus from Michael Reagan, in a Feb. 1 Newsmax column: "I know in my heart he hates me, and every conservative. If he gets the nomination, the only way he could win against Hillary or Barack Obama would be to be part of a McCain-Limbaugh ticket."
That Word Does Not Mean What They Think It Means Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Jan. 31 WorldNetDaily article by Perry Atkinson and Bob Just is headlined, "A bipartisan call to draft Newt Gingrich." The front-page promo takes it further: "Can you feel a draft? Both parties call on Newt Gingrich!"
But Atkinson and Just are not ideological opposites; in fact, neither appear to be actual Democrats. From the bio at the end of the article:
Perry Atkinson and Bob Just are daily radio co-hosts at thedove.us serving Southern Oregon. Atkinson is a former chairman of the GOP in Oregon and a board member of United Christian Broadcasters International. Just is a longtime Reagan Democrat and a WorldNetDaily columnist who worked on Sean Hannity's book, "Deliver Us From Evil."
The only thing that's happening here is that Atkinson and Just are purporting to speak for "Republicans and Reagan Democrats," later called "Traditional Democrats" -- not actual Democrats. Indeed, the authors bash Democrats throughout the piece, claiming they "have little to contribute other than their usual 1960s 'cultural revolution' and 'old government' top-down dictates," and that if you "listen past the warm and fuzzy rhetoric" of Democratic candidates, "you'll hear the words, 'government rule and regulation.'"
In other words, there is nothing "bipartsan" about this; Atkinson and Just merely want a different Republican to vote for.
New Article -- Out There, Exhibit 44: Life on the Double-Standard Plantation Topic: The ConWeb
Two years ago, Hillary Clinton was blasted by conservatives for using the "plantation" metaphor. Has it stopped the ConWeb's own use of it? Nope. Read more >>
A post at Campus Watch states thusly about an earlier post of ours:
This blog post incorrectly describes Campus Watch as a "conservative-funded website that attacks liberal college professors."
In fact, Campus Watch's funding is not tied to any particular political ideology, nor do we critique (not "attack") academics on the basis of political proclivity.
Rather, Campus Watch critiques Middle East studies academics where, as indicated in our mission statement, one of the following five issues come into play: analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students.
Media Transparency lists only two major conservative foundations as donating to Campus Watch's parent, the Middle East Forum, so we're willing to concede the assertion on funding -- that is, pending further information on the Middle East Forum's funding sources, about which the Campus Watch post curiously fails to offer any detail.
The post's suggestion that "political proclivity" does not play a part in Campus Watch is a tad disingenuous. Campus Watch's general agenda -- aggressively pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian, and arguably anti-Muslim -- parallels that of conservatives. If Campus Watch doesn't attack liberals, why does a search for the word "liberal" on its website reveal the following, for example:
Further, note who wrote that Campus Watch "correction" on us: Cinnamon Stillwell. That's right -- the person we outed a couple years back as a terrorist sympathizer (or, in Campus Watch jargon, an "apologetic"). If Campus Watch truly has no political agenda, shouldn't it be watching her instead of letting her write for it?
Gore Derangement Syndrome Watch Topic: NewsBusters
A Jan. 30 NewsBusters post by Ken Shepherd notes that Current Media, the company co-founded by Al Gore that operates the Current cable channel, has filed for an initial public stock offering, then adds: "Of course, it’s never made a profit and the vast majority of its revenue comes from cable companies paying it for the privilege of carrying Current. ... Paying up the nose with no return on investment to appease the green movement. Sounds a lot like carbon credits."
Funny, when Newsmax filed for an IPO back in 2002, we don't recall anyone at the MRC expressing concern that it had "never made a profit," as we detailed. Further, all cable channels receive those "affiliate fees" that cable companies pay; Shepherd offers no evidence that Current's business model is any different from any other cable channel.
Gore doesn't seem to be doing anything out of the ordinary. So why is Shepherd so desperate to ridicule and smear him?
A Jan. 29 NewsBusters post by Noel Sheppard touts a WorldNetDaily column by Kathleen Willey, which he calls a "public warning" to Obama "outlin[ing] some of the tactics Willey believes the Clintons might use against Obama to thwart his presidential candidacy." (Willey's bio at the end of the article rather hilariously calls her a "popular commentator on current events.") Sheppard then writes: "Think Willey will be Harry Smith's guest on the "Early Show" some time soon? No, I don't either."
Think Sheppard will ever tell his readers about Willey's credibility problems? No, we don't either.
Most news organizations, when they outline criticism against someone, give that person an fair opportunity to respond. Not WorldNetDaily; as we've detailed, WND has a problem telling both sides of the story.
That tradition continues in a Jan. 29 article by Aaron Klein, in which he claims that Robert Malley, a foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, "has penned numerous opinion articles ... petitioning for dialogue with Hamas and blasting Israel for numerous policies he says harm the Palestinian cause." Klein quoted one "israeli security official" -- anonymous, of course -- saying that Malley "expressed sympathy to Hamas and Hezbollah and offered accounts of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that don't jibe with the facts." Klein made no apparent attempt to contact Malley for a response.
Klein also wrote:
Malley also previously penned a well-circulated New York Review of Books piece largely blaming Israel for the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations at Camp David in 2000 when Arafat turned down a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and eastern sections of Jerusalem and instead returned to the Middle East to launch an intifada, or terrorist campaign, against the Jewish state.
But nowhere does Klein actually quote from Malley's piece to support his contention or to contradict anything Malley wrote.
Clinton Derangement Syndrome Watch Topic: Newsmax
A Jan. 29 Newsmax column by Lowell Ponte describes the Clintons as "a demented and devious duo of egomaniacs who will go down in history alongside the crazed Emperors Caligula and Nero of the late Roman Empire."
Another reminder that the MRC's mission is less about "balance" and more about being offended that positive things are being said about liberals at all comes from Tim Graham in a Jan. 29 NewsBusters post, in which he rails against "at least two completely sickening moments for conservatives" -- as his headline puts it, "puke points."
The first is calling the Kennedys "American royalty," which Graham claims "conservatives would like ... to be a trap-door phrase or a Nerf ball-pasting phrase." The second was "Paul Begala with his usual embarrassing over-praise of Bill Clinton," to which Graham responds: "Let's hope Begala has been well-paid for making statements that are so fawning they make Bambi blush."
Graham added that "Begala then turned even more desperate in tone, suggesting that some in the media hate Clinton so much, it's like mental illness." Graham doesn't comment on that, perhaps because it hits a little too close to home.
Sheffield Still Flailing Away at NYT Stock Structure Topic: NewsBusters
A Jan. 28 NewsBusters post by Matthew Sheffield continues his flailing away at the New York Times Co.'s stock structure, in particular praising "Morgan Stanley's audacious attempt to end the Times's dual-class share system which enables the radical leftist Sulzberger family to continue running the paper into the ground by giving it almost-exclusive control of the NYT Co.'s board of directors."
As we've noted, Sheffield never criticized the pre-Rupert Murdoch structure of the Dow Jones Co., owner of the Wall Street Journal -- which had the same type of dual-tier stock -- all but admitting his double standard that his NYT criticism is based on what he thinks are its "radical leftist" policies, while Dow Jones while not taking the Journal's right-wing editorial pages into consideration.
A Jan. 28 NewsBusters post by Warner Todd Huston ascribes the views of a single article to that of the entire New York Times: "Through the pessimistically, penumbrous pen of Parag Khanna, the New York Times has declared that the U.S.A. is finished. Yes, we have lost our 'global hegemony' and we will find that by 2016, 'America’s standing in the world remains in steady decline.' "
But the Times didn't just run a single article by neoconservative William Kristol; it hired him as a regular columnist. Shouldn't that mean, using Huston's logic, that the Times is a hotbed of neoconservatism?
Or is it just that Huston is utterly obtuse on the concept of a newspaper permitting the airing of diverse views? He is obtuse is so many other areas...
LeBoutillier Embraces Sampley As Source Topic: Newsmax
In his Jan. 28 Newsmax attack piece on John McCain, John LeBoutillier lists as one of the reasons why McCain is "totally out of step with the GOP voters": "He has a terrible anger problem. (See Ted Sampley's excellent article at the US Veteran Dispatch.)"
Sampley is a longtime hater of McCain best known for calling him a "Manchurian candidate" -- a meme Paul Weyrich tried to spread about McCain in 2000 -- and for punching a McCain staffer, for which he was sentenced to two days in jail, six months probation and an order to stay away from McCain. Sampley was also behind an anti-McCain screed mailed to media outlets in South Carolina before the recent primary that appropriated Swift Boat Vets imagery (spelled "Swift Boot Vets for Truth). Sampley's website also features a picture of Barack Obama doctored to loook like an African savage.
Is this a guy LeBoutillier really wants to rely on as a source of information?
McCain is a prime target at Newsmax today: Diane Alden and Ronald Kessler also weigh in with anti-McCain pieces. In a bit of insider dealing, Kessler cites LeBoutillier as a source, quoting him as saying, "I think [McCain] is mentally unstable and not fit to be president."
Back in 2003, we detailed how WorldNetDaily told only one side of the story in the case of William Kennedy, former editor of Conservative Digest who was convicted on charges of racketeering, mail fraud and money-laundering and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Kennedy has been trying to get out of prison ever since, snagging a new lawyer in Christian writer Craig Parshall and a defense funded by "Left Behind" co-author Tim LaHaye.
It appears that Kennedy is still at it. The Jan. 28 edition of James Dobson's "Focus on the Family" radio show details his case, insisting he was "unjustly imprisoned for white collar crimes" that "he did not commit." We haven't listened to the show yet, but we suspect that, like WND, Dobson won't be telling the full story either.
Farah Tosses Softballs to Vox Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've noted that, despite WorldNetDaily's regular proclamation that it has a "fiercely independent editorial mission with no sacred cows," WND has plenty of them. WND demonstrates it again in editor Joseph Farah's Jan. 28 interview of columnist Vox Day to promote Day's new book, "The Irrational Atheist."
Farah tosses nothing but softballs at Day, culminating with, "When are you going to lose that ridiculous mohawk and grow a righteous mustache like mine?" Thus, Farah sidesteps holding Day accountable for some of his most notorious assertions, including:
His approvingly citing the Nazis as a prior example of how millions of people can be removed from a country (ultimately scrubbed from Day's WND column on orders of Farah himself).
His statement that "Jews have worn out their welcome in literally dozens of countries over the centuries" (which Farah is on record as criticizing, if belatedly so).
In a Jan. 25 Newsmax column, Lowell Ponte offers up some "serious" questions that "might be asked of Clinton if a genuine journalist seriously interrogated her." Here are a couple:
Mrs. Clinton, will you pledge that as president you will never appoint to any federal court, including the U.S. Supreme Court, anyone who has had a law license suspended for unethical behavior? Of course, your husband Bill Clinton’s license to practice law was suspended for five years for lying under oath in a court case.
[...]
In Africa, Barack Obama and his wife volunteered to be publicly tested for HIV, not because they feared having it but to set a good example that encouraged others to take such tests on this AIDS-plagued continent.
In that spirit of encouraging others, will you and your husband prior to the Democratic National Convention volunteer to be tested for HIV, and to make the results of these tests public?
Unlike past presidential candidates, you and your husband have refused to make your medical records available to reporters — although your 1993 health plan would have opened every citizen’s health records to any curious government bureaucrat.
Of course, Ponte doesn't mention -- as a "serious" questioner presumably would -- that President Bush has also refused to fully release his medical records.
